


Fate

by grumpyowls



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Little Dialogue, M/M, Missed Connections, introspection i suppose, pre-serum steve for the first part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:55:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1465087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpyowls/pseuds/grumpyowls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky finds a drawing and it turns out to mean something more than he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [命运](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1609886) by [yuki812](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuki812/pseuds/yuki812)



> just a thought that stuck in my head the other night. as usual, not beta'd and speedily proofread at work. verb tenses are likely all over the place as halfway through i couldn't decide what i wanted. will fix them as i catch them. i am so sorry. ( [tumblr](http://wildthorberries.tumblr.com/post/82704410370/fate). )

It all started with a picture.

Well, that's only half true. For Bucky it started with that picture. For Steve it started long before. There had been dozens by then—sharp graphite lines across pages, charcoal when he had the chance, all flowing together to create the natural flow of a body. The stretch of muscle over bone, a strong back, strong hands... but never a face. Somehow that was too embarrassing, even in Steve's private sketches.

Sure, sometimes he asked if he could sketch Bucky. And Bucky would let him—on warm, spring days when they'd go to the park and sit in the dappled sunshine under a tree. Or in the winter in Bucky's apartment when it was too cold to do anything but sit wrapped in blankets. Or maybe even once or twice (or more) when Steve just felt like it and Bucky had nothing better to do. But he always felt he never got the lopsided curve of Bucky's smile right, or that expression in his eyes that Steve never knew what it meant. 

Bucky always gave him a good-natured ribbing, a gentle chiding, whenever Steve asked to draw him, but that was all. Steve used to just roll his eyes, muttering that Bucky liked it while he got out his book and pencil. Bucky would just shrug one shoulder, give that smile he always wore and say "Maybe I do, pal." 

And that was that.

Until the summer of 1936. It was hot and getting warmer every day. Some days the air was so heavy, it made it hard to breathe. But, even so, Steve would take the humidity over the frigid cold. Both made it hard to breathe, but he liked the warmth of the sun on his back and his face. 

It's late June and they're down by the Hudson. The water is as warm as the air, so it's like sitting in a bath and Steve lost interest long ago. Bucky and some of his friends scrambled up a small building, jumping off the roof and into the murky river. It's fun and exciting, everyone is a blur of sound and color. A few girls had come, as well, and hung back near Steve, watching the boys play daredevil and tittering behind their hands. Sometimes he wished he could join them rather than hang back all the time. But, he knew it'd be more trouble than it was worth.

Eventually, though, Bucky made his way back—cocksure smile on his lips and a swagger to his step. Steve watched him with slight envy (it couldn't be helped), but he'd never held anything against his friend. These were the cards they were dealt, and that was simply that. His eyes settle on Steve and he smiles a little brighter and Steve never thinks of that envy again. At least not today.

Bucky settles on the blanket beside him, leaning back on his elbows in repose. Drops of water still sit on his skin, glinting like gemstones in the sun. Something funny tickles in the back of Steve's mind, but he doesn't know what it is, so he doesn't spend time thinking on it. For a few moments, time had seemed to stop while Steve watched the rise and fall of Bucky's chest, his torso, while he breathed. 

He shook himself out of the stupor, though, and pulled down the bill of his baseball cap. 

Bucky pressed a finger hard against Steve's leg, just above his knee. The space turned white— _briefly_ —but went right back to pink. The sun was hot, beating down on them, and Bucky smelled like summer. 

"You alright? Gettin' kinda red."

Steve just huffs, swatting Bucky's hand off. "Fine. Don't worry about it."

All he did was laugh, a happy sound that Steve had always liked hearing, and balled up his shirt to use as a pillow. "A quick nap," he says, eyes closing against the sun, "then we'll go."

It hadn't taken Bucky long at all to fall asleep with Steve sitting like a sentry at his side. Only when he knew Bucky was well and truly out, did he flip to a new page toward the back of his book and begin to sketch Bucky—the stray curls of still damp hair that stuck to his forehead, the fall of his lashes that dusted against the slight pink of his cheeks, the way his lips were slightly parted while he breathed in even breaths. They were quick sketches, just something to pass the time. The bend of his arms, the length of his legs, the expanse of skin, the hem of his shorts sitting high on his thighs—

Steve had immediately flipped back to the front of the book, his face flushed and a heat that had nothing to do with the weather creeping up the back of his neck as his thoughts took a more than strange turn. Instead he drew the landscape and forced his thoughts elsewhere. He never told Bucky about it, or those sketches, but he never forgot that image either.

It wasn't something that happened often, but often enough for Steve to take notice of what he was doing over the next few years. They were doing body study in art class and it could easily be explained away by that. Except when Steve was at home, alone, doing extra work and trying to capture the curve of a shoulder, the indent of a hip, the bend of an arm... it was Bucky. Steve left a lot of work unfinished, sultry poses conjured up by his imagination, but they stopped at the neck. Always. Never going higher. 

It was summer again, 1941, just after Steve's birthday and only a handful of months before everything was set to change their world. Bucky had gotten him a new Yankees baseball cap (he knew a guy, he'd said, got a nice deal on it) and some charcoal. He'd even brought over a cake. It was more than Steve could've wished for. They sat out on the balcony that night, drinking a few nicked beers and eating most of that cake. It's a memory they'd both hold on to for the next several years, but for very different reasons.

Later, Bucky had been digging around in Steve's closet, looking for a spare blanket to put over the couch. He'd known Steve wanted the company, his birthdays were hard ever since his mom passed, and Bucky wasn't going to leave his friend hanging in the wind. In his search, he'd knocked over a box and a few small odds and ends had fallen out. There were some drawings, too—fruit, a dog, still life kind of things—and Bucky had smiled while he looked at them. Except as he shuffled through, trying to put everything back to rights, he found one he probably wasn't supposed to see.

It's two people, wrapped around each other. It's erotic and sensual without being crude. But, it's two men for one thing and for another it stops at the throat. A wave of heat crashes over Bucky in that moment and he thinks it's just embarrassment. He hears Steve call his name, asking if everything's alright and his footsteps coming closer. Without thinking, Bucky folds it up quickly and jams it in his pocket. Everything is set to rights by the time Steve comes in and he smiles, confirming that, yeah, everything is good.

That night while he's out on the couch and Steve is sleeping in his room, Bucky takes that drawing out again and stares at it for far too long by the light of the moon.

It's not until about a year later, when Bucky's long since left the safety of New York and is out in the trenches with his unit that he finally admits to himself that it's him and Steve in that drawing. He kept it with him, and maybe he shouldn't have taken it from Steve that night, but something told him to. 

He looked at it a lot over the course of that year, slowly falling more and more into whatever fantasy he dreamed up. Once or twice his mind attempted to supply who they were, but he refused it, knew it would make things weird. Steve was his best friend and he didn't want anything to jeopardize that.

(Later, he'll never get the chance to tell Steve all the things he wanted like he thinks he will.)

Bucky keeps that drawing with his things, looks at it before falling asleep, runs his fingers over the lines that have since worn down, some slightly faded, and he thinks about what he'll say to Steve when he gets back. 

And then he gets taken by Hydra and the thoughts and memories in his mind begin to get a little jumbled. They ask him things, but he just repeats his name, his number, nothing more. He holds on to the image of Steve's face, his balcony in Brooklyn and that drawing.

He thinks it's a hallucination when Steve shows up. It's him, but it's not, and Bucky has a little trouble reconciling the image in front of him, to the image he holds in his head. But he's there, he's real. 

When they all return to camp and Bucky sees how he looks at Peggy, he forgets all of those things he wanted to say. Fate is just damn hilarious, he thinks.

It's a year and six months later when Steve has the very same thought.

Peggy finds him in that destroyed bar, sitting in the dark and drunk on grief instead of alcohol. There's nothing she can say to temper the feelings, to cauterize that gaping wound, but she makes an attempt to patch it over. In some ways, Steve appreciates her effort. But, it doesn't matter what anyone says, because words aren't going to bring his best friend back. 

Funny how he's the pinnacle of strength now, and he feels like he can't even support his own weight anymore. He sits there, remembering Bucky's smile, his laugh, his anger, his compassion. He remembers all the stupid things Bucky talked him into and the few things Steve was able to talk him down from. For so long, Bucky was Steve's world, his support to keep him spinning on the axis. 

And now he's got nothing.

Peggy tells him there's a box of Bucky's things back at base for him. At first Steve doesn't want it, and almost tells her so, but when he gets back there, he collects it all the same.

In the safety of his own quarters, he rifles through the small collection of things. There's a British flask, the Union Jack emblazoned on the side with dings and scratches etched into it. There's scribbled notes and pictures of his friends back home in Brooklyn. Steve carefully looks over each picture, each smiling face and he remembers when some of them were taken—he's even in some of them, instead of the one taking them. He can't help but think of how he's going to tell them what happened, how he'll manage through the weight of guilt that sits on his shoulders because it's his fault. 

He gets to the bottom and there's a folded up piece of paper. The creases are worn, so Steve is careful in opening it. Before he unfolds it all the way, there's a few words in Bucky's messy scrawl and Steve doesn't understand what it means. 

Except it slaps him in the face when he sees that drawing and Steve nearly rips the paper in half. It hits him like a physical punch to the gut—he'd been frantic when he noticed this missing. Eventually, he'd assumed it had gotten thrown out. But... all this time—

He remembers drawing it. They'd spent the day together, which wasn't unusual. By that point Steve had known what he wanted from Bucky, but he was never going to say anything. Putting their friendship into jeopardy wasn't worth it. Still, that left him frustrated a lot in ways he never expected. So, he'd drawn what he wanted and left it at that. It was satisfying enough (except it never really was and all he had wanted was to run his fingers through Bucky's hair and feel the press of their bodies in the sticky summer heat).

Heat pricks his eyes, his throat squeezes tight, making it a little hard to breathe. Steve folds it once, running the tips of his fingers over that messy scrawl.

_I know, pal, me too._

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fate (Podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596170) by [bettythetl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettythetl/pseuds/bettythetl), [grumpyowls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpyowls/pseuds/grumpyowls)




End file.
